First days in China...

I'm alive! Sorry to everyone who may have started to worry that I might be dead or homeless. I can assure that that is not the case. I am finally able to make my first blog post today since I still have no internet at my house and I've been too busy at school during the day to spend much time writing.

So far my stay in China has been VERY busy. This past week has felt incredibly long but fortunately everything has gone pretty smoothly. I arrived on Saturday afternoon and was picked up from the airport and taken to a hotel by agency that recruited me. I haven't seen too much of Shanghai since then but from what I have seen I'd say that it's kind of sci-fi/ futuristic high-rise living/ polluted dystopia meets colourful, hectic and surprisingly leafy city. If that makes sense.

Songjiang, the suburb where I'm living now and where the school is located is a bit of a distance from Shanghai proper (about 45 mins on the metro). Its a bit quieter out here (though if this is the suburbs then downtown Ottawa must be the backwoods of nowhere) and less polluted (most days I can actually see the sky). Xiwai School is a fancy private Chinese international school where about half the student population (some kids as young as grade one) lives in boarding. I'm teaching Kinder 1 and 2 aaaaaaand...for the first time in my life...I have my own office!

Well, I have to get back to lesson planning and cleaning my apartment which is still a bit of a tip...although much less gross than when I moved in (I found some face cream in my bathroom just after I got there that had the word "placenta" on it). I have some photos of my new neighbourhood but unfortunately the internet is acting funny and not letting me upload anything so they will have to wait until next time.

Until then! Much love.